Ask HN: What do you think when commercial usage says “contact us for a quote”? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What do you think when commercial usage says “contact us for a quote”?

15 pointsandrewstuart22 comments

Say there is some software library or other product, which is free or open source to use for non-commercial use, but for commercial use it says "contact us for a quote" - what runs through your head at that point?

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That’s the company selecting against you as a customer. If you have the gut reaction that every other poster to this thread (as well as me) has, it just means that you are not their target customer.

Similarly, the enterprises that will buy this thing would never click the buy button on the $50,000/month column of a pricing chart. That’s just not how that world works.

Developer folk get all worked up about this style of sales, and often muse aloud about how much business these companies are losing. But they could add all of our business up and find that it all fits into the discount they give to one of these big enterprises that are their target customers.

I think "It's probably costs way too much." and "I'm going to get pestered by some annoying salesperson if I contact them, aren't I?" It's a very strong incentive to not consider the product.

exactly this. I was curious to see how much JetSmarter (a private jet ticket coordination service) cost and I get calls/emails from them weekly.

When I see "contact us for a quote" I am thinking that they charge different companies different prices.

Or that their price is negotiable. If you are an early stage startup or a nonprofit, maybe they'll offer reduced pricing. That's been the case for me since I always ask if they have nonprofit pricing.

I would rather talk to someone about that over email than be forced to pay the sticker price with no wiggle room.

I've worked in enterprise sales before. Fixed price tiers are dumb when customers have different customizability needs, so margins on each contract can vary quite a bit.

Exactly. Are you an individual trying to do some sort of business using the code? Or a company needing 1000 seats? What kind of volume will you be moving with this software?

That the company will research my company and decide how much they can get from me, based on how much my company can afford, not how much the product is worth. Like when you go to a car dealer and they ask, How much are you looking to spend?

To me this is a big "no" because I'm not in such position to negotiate a deal with another company. All I can do is send proposals to our administration with a clearly stated fixed or recurring price, that's a pity but I know it's how the business works - and it works very well too.

For me it depends on the complexity of the technology. Some javascript controls library where I only need a few parts of what they do? No thanks, I'll look elsewhere or just program that myself.

Something more complicated like a graphics engine however? Well I guess that's hard to price. It's going to depend on the use-case and your industry and turnover of your company.

But I despise it because it means I'll get e-mails and phone calls from this company for the next six months. Once they even sent someone to a stand at a tradeshow my company did despite me saying that it was just too expensive to consider.

I wish people would advertise a license based on the client's turnover - <1m, <10m could have stated prices and >=10m could be "contact us". But I totally understand why companies don't want to do that.

"I can't afford it."

That only makes sense to me if there are other fixed price options and this option is for, "if your usage falls well outside of our existing options we can tailor an arrangement."

If it's the only option presented? Nope.

I get offering discounts for large-scale use, because otherwise the rate card might go beyond what it would cost to recreate your product inhouse. But no published pricing even for prototyping? "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further" is what runs through my head. What happens when we're seriously dependent on it?

It means "we're going to send a professional negotiator to squeeze as much as we can out of you."

Can't afford it, won't be able to afford it. This is for bigger businesses. Do not think about building anything around this - they may pull a quickbooks or microsoft and ruin future updates too.

In the event of considering a contact, consider making a new email addy for the spam and a different phone number. Prepare to limit information given to the sales person that they can use to craft a price and to re-sell to others later.

Will not bookmark, will not put into notes for other future projects, will not mention the product when speaking to others who may be in need of something similar.

For most large commercial use cases, there is typically negotiation and customization involved. Very rarely will a standard SaaS program fit right into an enterprise customers work stack just like that. There are many other requirements that won't be covered and on the flipside, there could be many other ways to structure a deal that works for both parties. "Contact us for a quote" helps companies to build relationships with customers and understand their problems instead of proposing a take it or leave it scenario.

“Contact us for a quote” is for customers that buy via purchase orders net 60~.

If your interested in using it then there is no way you wont drop a quick email. Even if you are considering it against others with public pricing you would still be curious.

Also as a purchaser the resultant communications flow tells you a lot about the professionalism of the company and the support you will receive later. IE is this a real, knowledgable guy responding or a "customer success rep" with a canned email etc

If they knowingly keep this much friction in their sales funnel, I expect pretty bad support. I don't ping them until after disqualifying all their competitors, partly over spam, partly over the intrusive questions I know they'll ask, and partly because if their number were competitive and reliable it wouldn't be concealed.

> what runs through your head at that point?

"They've given away the cow, and now want people to pay for the milking."

"If I do whatever I want with this code (like rip a subroutine out of it and use it in a proprietary program, ignoring the license and copyright law) it's extremely unlikely they would ever find out."

That's a typical trick of open source stuff owned by heavily commercial entities.

Sales dance to follow.

They are targeting decision makers or managers who are given a budget and deadline. Meaning "spend your budget wisely and deliver or else...".

If you're an individual looking for a deal - move on...

"no thanks, bye"

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